To a man, the Texans insist they want Gary Kubiak to stay on as their head coach, and they're also asking their fans to stay behind them during these wretched times.

Today presents one final, still-meaningful opportunity for them to tell us again, with feeling, they deserve to get what they want.

"You have to show you're fighting for Gary by the way you play," said injured middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans, who regrettably hasn't been able to do that for nine games now, eight of which the Texans have lost in tumbling to 5-10. Another defeat would guarantee Kubiak his worst season in five years and, depending on how it goes down, could prove fatal for his survival.

While it appears Kubiak — if not all of his assistant coaches — will return next season, the man who will make the call hasn't yet spoken those words. Owner Bob McNair seems to be reserving final judgment until after he sees what his troubled team has left in its tank.

Or, more important, its heart.

"We've got (Kubiak's) back," said Arian Foster, who has showed it with his feet, running to the brink of the NFL rushing title.

Foster has served time in Kubiak's doghouse, yet he is one of the few Texans who has done nothing to sabotage his boss. If anything, he could have contributed even more to keeping the team afloat, if only Kubiak had given him a freer rein on occasion.

But all the Texans can do now is look wistfully toward next year … again. They've never lost a last game under Kubiak, so a victory over AFC South rival Jacksonville guarantees nothing in the way of carryover for 2011, but as tight end Joel Dreessen noted, "It is next year already. We can be 1-0."

Feeling fans' frustration

Most Popular

The Jaguars (8-7) come in battered, missing their starting quarterback, David Garrard, who shredded the Texans in Jacksonville in November, and their load-toting running back, Maurice Jones-Drew. But they still haven't been eliminated from postseason contention.

"It's like a playoff game for us," Dreessen said. "That's how we've got to treat it."

It might feel like a road playoff game, though. The Texans' ticket-buyers aren't a happy lot, and they will be quick to voice their displeasure at every gaffe.

"I fully understand (the fans' frustration)," said Andre Johnson, who won't play this afternoon as he prepares to undergo ankle surgery. "We're frustrated, too."

And utterly flummoxed by a string of losses whose collective script has defied credulity, none more so than cornerback Glover Quin's Nov. 14 attempt to bat down Garrard's "Hail Mary" fling, only to have it land in Jaguar Matt Thomas' hands for the winning touchdown. That play, in retrospect, was when hope died for 2010.

Consistently inconsistent

You couldn't make up what has happened to the Texans since their 4-2 start. But most of the defeats shared a common thread: The Texans doggedly failed to make plays, offensively or defensively, when games were hanging in the balance.

"I feel like the guys are still playing hard and fighting," said Ryans. "It's just those lulls in the game when you have a great first half and in the second half guys started to do something totally different. That's kind of unexplainable. You don't know why things like that happen. It's just inconsistency on the players' part."

But you can't fire the players - not all of them anyway - and that's where things get sticky for Kubiak.

"(Kubiak) is one of the best coaches I've ever had," said Jacoby Jones, another Texan who has endured his share of the coach's wreath. "We are going to go out and bust our behinds and get this 'W.' We love our coach."